Japanese free climber Koichiro Kobayashi (小林幸一郎) hasn’t let his visual impairment hold him back from overcoming the challenges of life on and off the wall. Kobayashi became a world champion of his sport and continues to help others break down barriers in their own life with his NPO, Monkey Magic, an organization with the mission of, "empowering the visually impaired and all others through free climbing.".
When did you first come in contact with climbing?
Koichiro: It was by accident really. In a bookstore one day, I picked up a copy of a magazine called “山と渓谷” (yamatokei - lit. mountain and valley) which had a feature in it about the new sport of free climbing that had started in America. Standing in the store and reading that article, that was when I became interested in climbing. Thinking about it now, that was 33 years ago. I was 16 at the time. Prior to that moment, as a kid in jr. high, high school, anywhere, I’d not been one for playing sports or doing exercise but in reading that article I finally found something that I really wanted to do.
What was the inspiration behind your NPO, Monkey Magic?
Koichiro: When I was 28 I learned that I had a medical problem with my eyes. The diagnosis was that it was something that couldn't be cured. Hearing this, whatever image I had had about my future was shattered there and then. It was a progressive disease so those things that I had been able to do when I could see, increasingly became things that I could no longer do.
The doctor I was seeing at that time once told me, "This is not about what you can do, what's important is what you want to do and how you want to live your life.", so I started to think more along those lines.
I didn't feel like I had any reason to give up climbing, rather I realised I wanted to carry on with it and share this fantastic sport with others who are visually impaired. The realisation that maybe I could combine my climbing and my loss of sight was what got me thinking about doing something like Monkey Magic, spreading the word about climbing to people like myself, and creating a place where this could be done.
So where climbing had been something for my benefit only, my hobby, something I did in my own free time, I started to feel an urge to turn it into something I could enjoy with others. Something I could use help others have fun.
What started out as a way of helping the visually impaired to take up climbing, eventually saw wheelchair users, people with hearing impairments, and people with learning disabilities start to join in with us. From there we found that people without disabilities became interested in climbing and wanted to join the fun.
Do you have any message to those who are taking up climbing?
Koichiro: I think climbing is one of those sports in which you’re going to continue to make mistakes. You’re always going to fall at some point. Those times when you make a mistake and fall, you can try to change the way you grip, the order of your hand positioning. You can identify where you lack strength and power and work on getting more. It’s a sport where you can work on fixing those things that need fixing and clearly see the results of your efforts when you finally reach your goal.
‘To challenge’, ‘to fail’, ‘to improve’, go through this cycle enough times and you’ll get there. This is climbing.
It’s not so easy to make progress but if you don’t give up, and you keep finding ways to improve you’ll without doubt move forward. The experience of this lies within climbing, and I want more people to have this experience. I think it also connects to our growth as people through taking on challenges and having fun with new things, so to those who haven’t had a go at climbing yet, I would definitely encourage them to give it try.
Image: Bouldering Gym Monkey Magic Tsukuba
About Monkey Magic: Official Site (English)
